One of the first women to play professional basketball will
share her story in a free, public lecture at the University of
Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Pat McKinzie-Lechault will present “A Mother’s Aspiration,
A Daughter’s Destiny – Four Decades, Three Generations, Two Continents, One
Game,” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 18. The talk will be held in the Laird Room at
the Dreyfus University Center on campus and is the final event of the year-long
“Access to Opportunity” lecture series. Her daughter, Nathalie Lechault, a 2009
alumna of UW-Stevens Point, will also speak. Lechault chose UW-Stevens Point to
play Pointer basketball with Coach Shirley Egner.

The lecture series marks UW-Stevens Point’s hosting of the
NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball championships March 21-22, and centers on
the access to opportunity Title IX gave young women playing scholastic sports.

“For me
it will truly be a celebration of women and how far we have come,” said
McKinzie-Lechault of her talk. The author of an autobiography, “Home Sweet
Hardwood,” she will talk about the personal and professional challenges she
faced and why she was inspired to write her book.

“Home
Sweet Hardwood” will be available for purchase at the lecture, with a portion
of the profits supporting the UW-Stevens Point women’s basketball team.
McKinzie-Lechault will sign copies.

The first female athletic scholarship recipient in
Illinois, McKinzie-Lechault was also the first female player to score 1,000
points at Illinois State University. She is one of the first Women’s
Professional Basketball League draftees and female inductees into the Hall of
Fame at Illinois State. After a 1983 car accident ended her playing career, she
began coaching, teaching and writing. She currently teaches and coaches at the
International School of Switzerland and writes a blog at http://pattymackz.com/wordpress.